Danube Dreams.

After the misery that was Vienna, Budapest was a welcome change, though it didn't begin that way. Disembarking my train, I punched my Airbnb address into trusty Google Maps, which told me my address was about 5 kilometres away. The only public transport was from a different station that was a fair way away, so being my stubborn self, I decided to just walk it.
It was warm, and after 2 kms it started to feel like that camera trick they do in the movies, where the foreground zooms into focus while the background zooms out into the far distance. Sweaty and grumpy, I dumped my bags onto the ground when I arrived at my destination, which didn't look quite right. The address, 'Bathory utca' was correct, but the house was ramshackle and decrepit, seemingly abandoned. I typed a message to my friendly host to ask her what I was doing wrong.
'You are in VIII District, yes?'
Unbeknownst to me, Budapest is divided into Districts, so that 'Bathory utca' in XVI District is vastly different from the one in VIII District. I typed the address into Google Maps again, and this time, it said 'Do you mean Bathory utca in XVI District, or VIII District?' Why it neglected to ask me the first time, I don't know, but I stood in the middle of a suburban street in Hungary and had it out with my phone there and then.
Seriously, it's like typing in 'Johnson Street, Victoria' and then Google Maps just picks one at random, say in Whittlesea, and then says 'there you go! Best of luck.'
Anyway, the proper street did have my apartment, and the host was very nice. However, I was only there for one night, because my real lodgings were booked out until the next day. Gladly, I had opted for an entire place to myself that was only 5 minutes from the Danube, and what a glorious bachelor pad it was.
After dinner on the second night, I went and had an authentic Thai massage. None of this anointing with scented oils and delicate, almost sensual kneading of muscles bullshit. This was agreed upon violence in a low-lit padded room.
I basically paid a heavyset Thai woman to beat the shit out of me. She held a rope that was attached to the ceiling and walked over me like a carpet, stopping to grind her heels in at specific points. There was one moment where she put both feet together and pushed into my back, which produced a painful but oddly satisfying crack, and prompted me to exhale unexpectedly and make a noise that went 'heeugghh!'
I left feeling like a million dollars. Also I wasn't crying, it was just that my eyes were hurting.

The next day saw me climbing up to Citadella, a 19th century fortress built on the Gellert Hill, a mighty mountain of rock jutting into the sky next to the Danube. A taxing yet rewarding climb, you are gifted with an almost 360 degree view of Budapest from a height that would be comparable to Hanging Rock. There's only so much you can do on top of a rock, however, so I made my way back down and back over one of the many bridges and decided to rent a scooter.
Running solely on electricity, these things were not to be trifled with. 'A top speed of 40mph!' is what the attendant told me, and after paying a quite reasonable sum of money they just... let me loose. For the next two hours I hooned around Budapest, zipping over bridges and terrorising old ladies, all while making motorbike noises. It was an absolute blast, and I'm positive I only hit one toddler, and even then, I'm almost certain he didn't die.
Topping off a great day with some dirty doner kebab, my time in Budapest has been marvellous. A+++ city, would visit again.

Prague rhymes with 'Flarg'.

If I had to choose a UK or European city to live in that wasn't Edinburgh, I could do a lot worse than Prague. What an absolutely beautiful city. The River Vltava cuts the city in two, and is spanned by many bridges, each decidedly different in style and age. The Charles Bridge was built in 1357 and is still standing strong. It also looks much nicer than the iron turds they built further downriver.
I was staying on the 4th floor of an apartment building across from the main city, with a nice guy called Carl and his little spaniel Winston. It turned out Carl is a drummer as well, and was heading out the night I arrived to play a gig. Since his girlfriend was away, I offered to look after Winston instead of him having to go in his cage, and we had a grand old time, playing fetch and drinking from the toilet.
I spent a whole day meandering through the city streets, and taking a diversion through one of the National Museums, which, it must be said, was pretty laughable. I paid €10 to see the 'Wild Life' exhibition, and while it was well put together and quite informative, it only covered a space about the size of about 2 tennis courts. I popped out the other side and had to ask the attendant if I'd missed something.
No matter. I resumed walking and crossed the Charles Bridge into the old town, where the streets are still cobbled and the trams wend their way through the twisted, sloping streets. The souvenir stands were abundant but not too tacky; they were almost reserved in their offerings. Great street food was readily available and I may have over-indulged.
Czech women are beautiful creatures, and I got a sore neck from twisting my head around to see amazing bottoms in very short shorts. I could have stayed longer, but I had to bid Winston adieu and move on.

Which leads me to Vienna. Vienna is like a fart during sex; it's a slight mistake during an otherwise enjoyable excursion. If the whole city looked like the grounds of the Schonbrunn Palace, it's most beautiful and charming landmark, it'd be heaven. Finely manicured gardens amongst avenues of leafy green trees, offset by grandiose fountains and the impressive edifice of the palace itself, it is an amazing place.
I walked at least 15 kilometres through the rest of the city, and it was unrelentingly shitty. Identically drab buildings extend as far as the eye can see, and every third business is a fucking kebab joint. Don't get me wrong, I love a kebab, but this is like a self-replicating virus of kebab. It might have been different in the days of Brahms and Strauss, but to me it seemed like the whole city was populated by Habib and family.
Perhaps with further exploration, there are other places to see and neighbourhoods that might feel welcoming, but in my admittedly limited experience, this place is awful.
Onwards to Budapest.

I would like to buy a hamburger.

Hamburg is okay. It's not great, and it's not awful, either. It's kind of beige. It felt like a place that you go through on the way to somewhere better. I stayed with a lovely Spanish family, who lived in a two room apartment on the third storey of a nondescript building in Harburg, about 15 minutes from Hamburg central. As I had taken the only other room, their whole family was in the other one. This consisted of  Rubén, the husband, Diana, the wife, Lisette, the 6 month old daughter, and Rocket the dog. And on the first night, Diana's sister.
I felt kind of bad, but Ruben reassured me it was okay. They take guests a few nights a week, and it pays the bills. He said living in this tiny apartment was better than scraping by in Spain, so he moved his whole family here. The second night they insisted I join them for dinner, which was a simple yet delicious meal of potato omelette, tomato in a simple dressing, and bread. Diana asked me in broken English if I had kids of my own. I told her my fur baby was waiting for me and showed her a photo of Sorrow.
"Any real baby?" she asked. I told her that it was something that didn't work out in the past and she made a sad face at me. If all Spanish women look like her, I could maybe be convinced to give it another shot.
I made a trip to the Reeperbahn, the entertainment/red light district of Hamburg, and wandered aimlessly for a few hours. Maybe it's the fact that we're desensitised to this kind of thing, or, more likely, I'm just a miserable sod, but there was nothing enticing about it. Not 'dangerous' in a seductive way, not sensuously mysterious. Just dirty, tacky and miserable. Homeless people begged for change every 20 feet, and every third store sold awful 'souvenirs'. Titty bars were everywhere, blasting music at painful levels and flashing bright lights in an effort to outdo the almost identical business across the street. The bordellos didn't seem to be much better. I went inside the 'Pink Paradise' so that you won't have to, and discovered that for €39 you can <censored> <censored> <censored> with a brunette, who will <censored> your <censored> <censored> and <censored> <censored> colander <censored> <censored> <censored> <censored> a tennis racket. The high point was actually the marijuana paraphernalia store and the wolfhound inside it. I made sure to give him lots of hugs. He seemed happy.

Berlin is far better.
A ten minute walk after getting off the train at the Hauptbanhof saw me standing at the Reichstag, a mightily impressive building made even more so with its history. I was surprised at its proximity to the Brandenburg Gate, situated about a kilometre away. Suitably imposing, it was crawling with tourists, and I didn't hang around long. All morning I could feel a head cold creeping up on me, and around lunch time it hit me with full force.
I haven't been that knocked around for a while, and spent the next 48 hours in bed sneezing green stuff into tissues that had the texture of 30 grit sandpaper. I actually had to change lodgings in the middle of this, and it's not something I ever wish to repeat.
I blame the fucking Wacken Festival.

The Inevitable Rant.

The break in updates was caused by some solid traveling and seething hate.

I got one my train from Edinburgh without issue and had an easy 5 hour trip down to King's Cross, where I changed trains to head out to Luton Airport for my 6:10 pm flight. Checked my bags in and wandered to the departure lounge, only to be told via the information board that my flight was delayed by an hour. Never mind, I'll get some dinner.
Emerging refreshed, the board had updated to show that my flight was now delayed by 2 hours. Okay! I will scan the racks in the newsagency! Duly scanned, I ventured out to check my gate number, and my flight had been delayed by another hour.
How lucky, then, that Luton Airport is so fucking interesting. When the gate number was finally announced and we were informed that our plane had landed, we were told that there would be an additional delay due to the entire passenger cabin being filled with piss. They don't know how they took onboard 14,000 litres of urine, but it must have happened in Majorca.

I finally boarded at 10:40pm and was herded to the back where I passed the entire flight cradling my head in my hands as unsupervised children screamed and ran up and down the aisle whilst undoubtedly shitting themselves with impunity and spreading germs, or whatever kids do.
By midnight, I was in Hamburg, and an expensive taxi ride later, in my Airbnb. A fitful night's sleep and I was back into travel mode. Heading out from Hamburg, I disembarked at a small town called Itzehoe, with a connecting service that deposited me at a smaller village called Wilster.
Very quiet and bucolic, I ambled along a riverbank until I got to the street where I was staying.
Erika,  my host, was a lovely lady in her 60's, and in broken English showed me around. She then asked if I was interested in going to the Wacken festival site that very evening, a day before the whole three day event began properly, as they had pre-show entertainment.
Well, why not! Erika (which this fucking computer keeps attempting to autocorrect to "Srikanth") and her ancient, decrepit but lovely husband whom I named Nietzsche because I never got his real name, ferried me out the 10 miles to the festival, and we agreed to meet back at the prearranged spot at 10:30. On one side of the absolutely enormous festival perimeter ran the Main Street of Wacken, which was filled with food trucks, music related shops and beer outlets. So many beer outlets. Some enterprising people were selling beer out of their garages, and why not?
Entering the main gate of the festival proper, I could see that the avenues for foot traffic were wide, but already beginning to show signs of deterioration into muddy puddles, but I figured into wouldn't be too bad, since the days had been sunny and warm. After a cursory glance at further food stalls and the main stages, I headed back to meet Erika and Nietzsche, and we headed back to their place. I got a reasonably early night in preparation for the following three days of metal.

In the morning, I met Alex, the young Mexican guy who was also staying at Erika's place. His English was impeccable, and we swapped numbers so as to meet up during the day/night, and then catch the shuttle bus back home when the first night had ended.
According to him, some light rain had fallen during the night, but the day was sunny and I thought no more of it. Alex kept mentioning he wanted to buy gum boots, but I told him we'd be fine.
Oh, you fool.
Queuing up to swap our tickets for an armband that ensure access across all 3 days, Alex and I did our best to dodge the growing rivers of mud that had appeared since my previous visit. When we finally hit the main thoroughfare, the truth became inevitable. The rain had turned the grassy fields of Wacken into a vast sea of mud. And with it came an epiphany. As my foot sunk into the cold mud, up to my shin, I felt something click.
Two years before I suppose it officially starts at 40, I could feel myself transitioning into middle age, or at least my definition of it. Standing in mud, a guy to my right being violently ill at 11:00am from too much drink and another guy to my right pissing into a mud hole, I thought 'fuck this'. There was
almost nowhere to stand that wasn't a muddy pit of misery, and this was all before midday. One of my favourite bands was due to headline, and they weren't due onstage until 12:20 am.

After a few hours my calves had begun to cramp due to the necessity of having to walk delicately and purposefully, lest an errant foot placement send you arse over tit and into the mud. By 9:00 I had booked a new Airbnb place in Hamburg. At 1:00 am, when the band Nile had finished, it was a simple matter of walking to the shuttle bus departure point, which was almost 2 kilometres away, through more muddy 'streets'. In the dark.
While it was cool to see a number of bands that I'd wanted to see for some time, the overall experience was just fucking ghastly. If I still drank, I could maybe handle three days of mud drenched awfulness, but even that's a stretch. Kudos to the people who do it year after year, but you can keep your shitty festival in a field in rural Germany where it belongs.